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Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

economist.com

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Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#21

Post by OkayPhysicist »

joshuamcginnis wrote: post #12
spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

Generations of workers fought for the _choice_ to not work weekends. Some people, including myself, are happy to work weekends and long hours if its worth it. The point is, it should be the workers choice and if they don't like it, they should be able to leave and find something better. There are clearly still plenty of engineers at Twitter who have done the cost-benefit analysis and decided staying was right for the…

If it doesn't cost the company significantly extra (say, due to overtime), then the company's interest is increasing work hours for everyone to the max. In such a situation, other workers doing so, and getting discretionarily rewarded for it simply erodes the position of those who, rightfully, refuse to work more than they need to.

Unless there's a fixed "here's how much extra you will be rewarded, and thus how much it will cost the company" policy about working past normal working hours, people who do so are scabs.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#22

Post by matwood »

spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

> Hobbies and other things outside of work that give our lives meaning. Generations of workers fought hard for things like weekends and we shouldn't just glibly throw them away just because we're paid well.

One of my big hobbies was doing everything I could on a computer way before I got paid to program. I doubt the author considered what they did a waste since they were doing something they enjoyed.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#24

Post by tomcam »

ketralnis wrote: post #11
spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

It's kind of a weird situation. As told, this person enjoyed what they were doing and hanging out with their friends, and that happened to be on a project that benefited their employer. This sounds like it's not your problem. Except you're troubled by it because you're competing with them. You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos but you're competing for the same salaries and…

> You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos

Still my idea of fun! Can’t do it anymore for health reasons but I still pull all-nighters doing my own retirement projects.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#25

Post by tylersmith »

ddellacosta wrote: post #9
spoils19 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A user on HN, kamaal, posted something that many on this site agree with: > Let's be honest this is far from what people call slavery. They are being paid multiples of six digit salaries, RSUs and work in one of the most happening tech ecosystems of the world. > I would love to be a part of something like this. Heck most of us would love to be a part of something like. > I kind of envy those guys working on these pro…

I understand the point being made, but this is fundamentally naive and counter-productive for everyone who wants to be working in this industry as a software engineer. Engineers are going to get exploited: just shrugging and saying "but we get paid well enough" means stuff like this: https://hirecloud.io/hr-and-recruiting-news/the-techtopus-ho... will continue to happen over, and over, and over. So, unfortunately, yo…

People like the OP are not fighting for scraps, they're doing what they love and enjoying their lives while getting scraps. People that don't enjoy doing that stuff resent them because they have to compete at stuff like they don't like to do for scraps.

That's only a negative for one side.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#26

Post by throw8383833jj »

spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

I totally agree.

Here's my hypothesis as to why people are so glib about throwing away their lives for their employer:

People depend on their employer for their entire livelyhood. This day and age, without a pay check, you can't have any basic needs: Shelter, food or water and you'd be out on the street or worse: the average homeless person (it's shocking) lives 30 years less than a housed one.

So, it's no surprise that a large segement of people end up with stockholm's syndrom from their employer. they begin to identify with their captor and even take on their values and their beliefs. If you're kidnapped, at least you have some hope of escape. but when you're employed, you are the prison guard who holds the key. so you have no hope of escape, this amplifies the stockholm's syndrom.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#27

Post by golemotron »

ketralnis wrote: post #11
spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

It's kind of a weird situation. As told, this person enjoyed what they were doing and hanging out with their friends, and that happened to be on a project that benefited their employer. This sounds like it's not your problem. Except you're troubled by it because you're competing with them. You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos but you're competing for the same salaries and…

> Except you're troubled by it because you're competing with them. You don't have fun hanging out late at work and living on Mountain Dew and Cheetos but you're competing for the same salaries and promotions as people that do. Them glibly throwing away their weekends does affect you because you're in the same competition space as them.

Yes. Ressentiment is ubiquitous these days. Nietzsche would be amused but it's not a good look for our culture.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#28

Post by afavour »

infamouscow wrote: post #16
smoldesu wrote: post #8

The "hacking" hook is simply that their Macbook went into MDM lockdown mode. That's completely normal for companies at-scale, and I can understand why they'd want to lock the devices before laying people off. If the opposite had happened, they'd be writing an article about how Twitter failed to protect their files and angle it as a "they're running out of staff" article. I still don't really understand what there is…

Corporate media produces nothing of intellectual value. It merely continues to exist because their business model, advertising, allowed them pivot into being drama generating entertainment machines.

It feels good to say stuff like that but it's not really true. A look over Pulitzer Prize winners from previous years will show deeply researched investigative stories and have had a real impact on public awareness.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#29

Post by tylersmith »

fnimick wrote: post #10
spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

Not just that, but every employee who wants to work nights and weekends puts pressures on those who don't to catch up or be cut. It's a race to the bottom that leads to people who do have things they need to do scheduling emails to go out late at night, changing the times on their commits, etc to look like they are as "committed" as the rest of the team. It's harmful and damaging and I'm not at all surprised that peo…

If people are scheduling emails and faking commits to feign value then they should absolutely be cut.

Re: Twitter engineer: I thought I’d been hacked. It turned out I’d been fired

#30

Post by tomcam »

fnimick wrote: post #10
spaced-out wrote: post #3

>My colleague, whom I liked a lot, was never going to get it done in time without help, so we all pitched in. I actually quite enjoyed it. I wasn’t really thinking about whether those changes were good for Twitter; I just really liked being part of that community, working together on a deadline. I even slept on a sofa in the office on Saturday night. It's not cool to paint pressuring employees to work long hours as a…

Not just that, but every employee who wants to work nights and weekends puts pressures on those who don't to catch up or be cut. It's a race to the bottom that leads to people who do have things they need to do scheduling emails to go out late at night, changing the times on their commits, etc to look like they are as "committed" as the rest of the team. It's harmful and damaging and I'm not at all surprised that peo…

Did Steph Curry or Kobe Bryant harm basketball because they plain worked harder than everyone else? Prince in the recording studio? Did they cause a race to the bottom?
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